Although Church Slavonic
can be a challenge, the good thing is that it is a phonetic
language; virtually every letter is pronounced. With a few
exceptions most letters retain the same sound regardless of
usage. The beginner can learn to pronounce words by simply
sounding out every letter.

Church Slavonic makes extensive use of diacritic marks. These markings indicate pronunciation and grammatical information about words.

Stress Marks

Stress marks indicate which syllable should receive slight vocal emphasis. Stressing the proper syllable in Church Slavonic is very important.

For the beginner hearing and vocalizing the stressed syllable can be difficult. Listen closely to the audio versions of prayers this site and in the E-Tutor. Develop the habit of proper stressing from the outset even though it will seem very ackward and forced at first.

Abbreviations

Service books make extensive use of text abbreviations called "titlos". Abbreviations must be memorized. Abbreviated words are typically those of significant persons (the Theotokos, Our Lord, etc) or concepts ( heaven,pray,holy,ect.).